Moth / Biodiversity Nights

An Io Moth Incredibly We Had 6 of these Come Into The Light on a Moth Night in EB. See more pictures from Moth Night on the Friends Photo Gallery

An Io Moth Incredibly We Had 6 of these Come Into The Light on a Moth Night in EB. See more pictures from Moth Night on the Friends Photo Gallery

Since 2005 years the
Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission has been holding
Moth Nights once or twice a year to explore and spotlight the nocturnal
and seldom seen life around us. We use two methods to see what is
flying in our parks; an extremely bright 175 watt Entomology Mercury
Vapor Light and a sweet fermented mixture painted on tree trunks ie.
what has been called "sugaring" for hundreds of years. The Mercury Vapor
Light gives off light in wavelengths that are very attractive to moths
and other insects, and the sweet mixture does the same through smell. We
hang the light in front of a sheet suspended between two trees so that
any insects that fly in toward the light have a place to perch so we can
examine them. The sweet mixture is simply painted on the trees with a
paintbrush an hour or so before dark.

The best nights for
"mothing" are in the summer on cloudy sultry nights with a chance of
thunderstorms, but even mild late winter nights can be productive.
Experiment, there is almost always something flying around...

My recipe for the sweet fermented mixture varies a little depending upon what I have at home but is essentially:

1 overripe banana or a can of peaches in heavy syrup (or both)A few ounces of dark rum (tasted beforehand to insure freshness)

A bottle of dark beer (tasted beforehand to insure freshness)

A box of dark brown sugar

Mash the banana and\or peaches so that they are in little pieces

Mix
the remaining ingredients together with the mashed fruit (use a
container with a large open mouth for ease of getting the paintbrush in
and out)

Put a tight lid on and leave in the sun for a few hours to a day

Paint a 1 foot square area on tree trunks about 3 or 4 feet off the ground, the more trees the better

Check
the painted spot every half hour or so, approaching very slowly (many
moths will be skittish) and using indirect light from a flashlight. (one note of caution - the mixture will be attractive to bees and wasps the next day)

If
you are taking pictures, shoot quickly and from as far away as possible
and as many photos as you can, especially at the sugar bait (moths on
the sheet are typically not as quick to fly). The flash and movements
toward the tree are often enough to scare away any nectaring moths.
However, they often come back quickly, so check frequently throughout
the night.

W. J Holland's -The Moth Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Moths of North America, 1903

Read this passage(click on the link below) from the great entomologist W. J Holland's groundbreaking 1903 book The Moth Book: A Popular Guide to a Knowledge of the Moths of North America. At the time and for nearly 75 years afterwords (and even to some extent today), it was the reference book on moths with color plates and natural history of thousands of species. His passage on the excitement of sugaring for moths is far better then anything I can write about why we do moth nights. I try to reread it each spring in anticipation of hot humid nights and sugaring!

While we take photographs on our moth nights, his collections were the basis for the plates in the book and for educating generations of entomologists and naturalists. But the thrill of the search on a sultry summer night is still the same. He describes the same excitement as we had on our last moth when a big underwing moth (the Catocala's he describes) alighted on the sugar. It is the moth in the two photos I posted on the moth page showing the bright red "underwings" where this large family of awesome moths derive their common name.